Bath Works

We started this bath remodel project waaaay back in June 2013. We originally wanted to do a kitchen remodel and in Fall of 2012 we were looking for a general contractor to remove the wall between the kitchen and dining room and getting quotes and also costs for cabinetry and a designer, etc.

Well what we found out was that it was going to cost a lot more $$$$ than we anticipated.  So we decided to not do the kitchen and tackle the bathroom instead.  But Kieran's 1st communion was in April and his birthday so it pushed it to May but we were going to Bahamas for Tresa's 50th so it got pushed to June.   So it seems like every Fun Fair Caravan at school I'm at home doing something with the house.

The year before was the basement.

This year Mel and I were gutting the bombproof bath.  It's not a big space.  It's a 7x7 room.  But it took the two us the entire day to get all the tiles down.  A month later I removed the floor and the tub. We weren't sure if we were keeping the floor or not, but I wanted in floor heating so the floor was out.  It was tough to crack, but surprisingly easy to get out.  Just heavy.  It's a mosaic marble floor tile on top of 1.5 to 2" of cement with mesh.  It wasn't going anywhere.  Except this day.  It was going outside.  

See that shirt. It's my reno shirt. Once the kitchen is done. Which will be our last major project. I'm tossing it.  Mostly cuz it has oil stains, drywall compound, paint, primer, probably some of my blood on there too.  It's not even good enough to be a rag. Yet I am wearing it still.

Spirit is Everything. You got that right. There's no way in hell I'm doing this for fun.  Itchy insulation, inhaling dust and debris, sweating to death in the attic and breaking my back and my elbow, cutting myself on nails sticking out or the mesh in the walls and getting frustrated by the people that work at Home Depot.

A few days later I removed the tub.  We weren't sure about keeping the tub or not.  But to get it refinished wasn't going to give us the expected result.  So out it went.  I still have the faucet and shower head.  I like it and didn't want it to end up in the land fill.  And this past year I made a base for it and hooked it up to the garden hose so the kids could play with it when it was hot out.  But we only had 1 day above 30degC. 

Then it was lighting and ventilation.  And squeezing into the space above the bathroom was 1 thing, finding some stuff I expect to be outside the house was another.  There was a bunch of dried twigs in the far corner of the house.  Like a nest.  I'd been up in the attic a bunch of times and this was unexpected and I had my crowbar with me in case there was something living or dead up there.  But I found nothing.  So I'm thinking this has been up there for a long time.  Because it was so dry.  It was a fire hazard, I figured, as well as being a little scary.

The roof slopes down on all four sides of the house.  So working in this area was tight.  About 20 inches at it's highest point above the bath.  I wasn't looking forward to having itchy arms and legs from the insulation.  But it's done now.  We have insulated light housings up there and an inline fan similar to the one we have in the basement.  Inline is the way to go.  It's so much quieter and more powerful. There is a sizing formula to this because you need to change the air 8x in an hour to calculate your CFM sizing for the fan.  Ours is double what we need.   So since I'm afraid of heights, I had the vent installed when I had the roof done.   No need for me to get on the roof.

I knew this wasn't going to be as quick as the "insulate the walls" project.  But I had no idea it would take this long.  There's so many decisions to be made.  From my side. There's 2x4's, drywall, cement board, ABS, copper, rigid insulation, LED lights, inline fan.  And that's it.  The cement board was toughest, since there's 1/4" for the floor and 1/2" for the wall.  And there's Wonderboard and Durock. Whatever, they're essentially the same thing.

But from the design side, there's colour, size, style, pattern, location, material type for tiles - marble, glass, ceramic. You name it. There's thousands of unique ones for each.  The selection is enormous.  And selecting them to make it what you envision. Well that's the challenge.  And it's not my decision.  I'm just the guy who makes it a reality.

In any case.  Time was ticking and we weren't done.  Well I was done I had 95% of what I needed to do done.  Only thing left was the trim and to put down the in floor heating wire (thinset it in). But I couldn't wait another year because the kitchen was already booked to be taken down.  This was our last project.  And I wanted to demolish everything and get all the big work done before we got neighbours.  I thought I'd have to rent a bin again, but I didn't.  The contractors gave me the name of a guy who would pick it up cheap.  And it was gonzo!

So while the bathroom sat in an almost finished state. The kitchen project began.  I was a little fearful, but Kieran asked me why I was scared?  He was right. No reason to fear. It was because it was a big change.

So on to the kitchen.

Our Bath re-construction





It's now close to the end of June 2015.  Two full years since my brother and I demolished the bathroom.  And it's finally getting completed.   We met with our old neighbour Joe to see when he can tile our bathroom.  And he said he can do it the week when I'm away in Denver. Figures!  Just hoping there's nothing for me to do. But it's now all on Teresa to get it done.


Today is July 20 2015.  Tiling is all done and it looks amazing.  There were some hiccups with the tiling, but they have been rectified and it's all good.  I got the controls, shower heads and supply shutoffs for the toilet and vanity installed middle of last week.  And this morning I got the Catalano toilet in.  It's an Italian toilet with German flush system.  I was surprised at how complicated it was to install.  I had to jump through some hoops to get this thing in.  One, the supply hose that was included with the shutoff was too short.  So I had to get one from HD, which I discovered after connecting it that it interfered with the supply connection hole in the back of the bowl.  So I had to trim the 3 larger ribs on the end of the hose that connects to the tank so the tank can sit correctly.  Thank God that worked.


I had it all connected nicely and turned on the supply.  Noticed that the tank wasn't filling to the fill line.  I looked at the instructions and then found a YouTube video on adjusting the fill level.  What a PITA. I had to drain the tank and remove it in order to adjust the friggin German Geberit Fill valve. But that could be more due to the slim design of the Italian tank. You can't do it inside the tank because the filler mechanism is right up against the left hand side wall of the tank so there's no room to rotate it to unlock. You have to physically remove it from the tank to adjust the level of the water filling in the tank, then reinstall it. It was humourous how complicated this was getting. So relieved I got it adjusted correctly on the first try.


But it's a beautiful toilet. Clean lines.  When we saw it, we both liked it.  One of the quicker decisions we'd made. If I had known what it took to install.  I would have liked it less. Actually the lady at the store told us it was not an easy toilet to install.   But it had been sitting in my office for a year.  Now that it's in and I've set it up and used it already.  I like it.

Next was the vanity.  This sink was the last one made that was still in Canada. When I was researching on how it needed to be installed, I determined it wasn't a 1 person job.  I needed some to help me ensure it was level and lined up and to spray water as I drilled through the tile.  Last I counted I needed 4 arms and hands for that.  I'm no octopus so I asked Mel to come over and help me install this thing.  It's German.  Most of the plumbing in this bath is German.  They make good stuff.   But I had to cut a hole in our bedroom wall to install blocking at the right location to secure the wall mounted sink.  It's not going anywhere.

It's ready for use. My use!

After 2 years +1 month.  Our bathroom is finally done.  No more going down 3 flights of stairs to use the toilet.
Everything is simple and clean and for a tiny bathroom, it actually feels a bit larger.  Even though the tub is wider.  The room is brighter (LED lights). Better storage. The floor is warmer (in floor heating is a must for a bath) and the walls are insulated.

I learned a lot.  There's some things that I would do differently.
But in the end it turned out fabulous.
So happy to have a bathroom again.  I feel pretty lucky that it's this nice.


Finished Bath

Pan Am 2015 Road Race in my Backyard

I was trying to get out to see both the Womens and the Mens, but unfortunately I only got to see the mens. Canadian Womens took home Gold and Bronze! And Men took home the Bronze.

I've never actually seen a cycling road race up close. It was exciting to watch.  Especially on Olympus Ave.  They got so close.  I was literally inches away from a racer.
I didn't quite expect to get that close.  I didn't want to be that person that knocked over a rider and have shame on me.  And probably have the police take me away.  That would be bad.

I was able to meet up with folks from Dark Horse Flyers and Lap Dogs.  These people love cycling and they are such a great group of people altogether.  Alvaro is a pediatrics doctor from Spain doing a fellowship here at Sick kids, that just happens to have a passion for cycling and joined the Flyers last year.  He was only supposed to be here 1 year, but has stayed on for another year.  It'll be sad to see him leave.  But folks from all over come and go.  One fellow from Australia just left a little while ago.  Although I cannot remember ever riding with him.

I'm so glad I got to see this race.  I ride this area when we do hills and you just can't compare yourself to a pro rider.  They ride up the hill as fast as I can ride down it.  But it is amazing to watch them do it.

I ran into Kieran's teacher Jim and his wife Janice so it was nice to see a friendly face and chat with them about the RTCC.  I also ran into some of the Norco guys.  Too bad Raoul could not come down to watch.

Mens Road Race Photos
Alvaro's photos (turned out so much better than mine!).
I think the best photo I had was of the motorcycle rider going down.  And taking the camera guy with him.
He just took the wrong line up the hill and popped it into neutral and he was going down.
Felt so bad. Saw the look in his eyes when he knew he was in trouble.

Pan Am Gold Rush

The 2015 Pan Am games were coming to TO!
Most people weren't sure whether to embrace it or flee from it.  From the traffic and empty restaurants in our area, many fled.  But we managed to see a few events.  The tickets weren't cheap, but in talking with Tom Ng, he said these things don't come around too often.  So I bought tickets to 100m and 200m swimming medals event and a semi-finals basketball event.

The medal games are twice as much as the pre-lims, but they were exciting! And we got lucky.  Canadian athletes were on the podium for every single event.  And no DSQs!
We sat near the Brazilian contingency so we got to be on TV a few times.  Although you'd have to be watching the online version at http://panam.cbc.com the TV telecast only shows the medal finals and selected heats.  But on their website you'll see almost everything.  And you can rewind if you want.  It's so cool.  Very fwd thinking from the Crown Television station.  Kinda surprising.

The parents of one of the gold medal Brazilian swimmers was sitting right behind us and were they ever overjoyed when their son won the 200m butterfly event.  He was the defending Pan Am champion in this event.  But the Canadian snuck in to get the bronze!  Making the podium is such an achievement, he and the crowd were going crazy!
.

Kieran had hinted he wanted to watch archery.  Since he had tried it once when he was at Annette CRC Camp.  I didn't think it was going to be a sell out so I didn't buy tix right away.  One nice thing about having tix is that the TTC is free.  During the games CIBC which was a major sponsor was offering a discount on tix.  So that's when I bought em.

And I got to try out my transit app that tells you when the next bus is expected to arrive.  Works pretty well.

It was a beautiful day for archery.  Almost no wind.
Kind of hard to see the arrows, but there were Canadians in the mix.  So it was cool.

We even got an autograph from one of the Canadian archers in the competition.  I took a photograph of my ticket he signed since, I'll probably recycle it.


We had been to Varsity stadium for the HMS track meet.  What a great outdoor venue.  Although there weren't any place to get any real food.  And there's no in-and-out privileges.  So we were kind of hungry.
General admission so you can sit anywhere and move around if you like.  It was pretty good.  Although a little slow.




I didn't realize Kieran was in the scene when I video recorded the crowd doing the wave at the Archery Event.

I bought the basketball tickets way back in December, same with the swimming.  I just got lucky on this one too, because it was Canada vs USA in the Semi-Finals.  Winner will move on to the Gold Medal Game and the loser will go on to the Bronze Medal game.

There were only 2 NBA players on Team Canada.  It wasn't Steve Nash, he's retired. But it wasn't Andrew Wiggins.  It was his teammate Anthony Bennett (who seemed to have shed a lot of his bench fat) from the Minnesota Timberwolves and Andrew Nicholson from the Orlando Magic.  And Jay Triano was head coach. I didn't recognize anyone else.  I didn't recognize any NBA players on the USA team.  But they did have Bobby Brown.  Every time he scored I was expecting him to break out and sing "Every Little Step I Take".  And I saw Mike Brown, former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach as assistant on USA team.


I was excited to be going to this event. The Pan Am Basketball games were at the Old Maple Leafs Gardens on Carlton St.  It's now Ryerson Athletic Center.  Where their basketball team plays.  It's super nice.  With a Loblaws on the bottom floor.  The ice rink is gone.  But inside is amazing.  There's a fitness center.  I've actually been in the old one once.  But I can't remember very well to compare.  I thought the old one was nice too.


It was a close game, with Canada leading (with there largest lead at 8) for most of the game until the 3rd QTR and from there it would seesaw back and forth, and Team USA leading by 8 late in the 4th.  And I thought it was game over. But late game heroics from Bennett would get Canada back in and tied at 97-97 with less than 20s left and Canada with possession for the last shot of the game.  At 12.8s left I noticed the game clock just stop.  Then it continued.  Team USA with a foul to give, fouled with 7.7s left.  Then officials changed the time so 5.1s because of the stopped clock problem.  Team Canada inbounded but missed their last attempt.  So it was off to 5min OT.

Where it was still pretty close, but Canada pulled ahead by 5.  And then USA started to mount a comeback, with 7s to go in OT down by 3, and USA with possession, they could tie it up and send it to double OT. But with the pressure on and Canada playing a strong D. Team USA missed their 3pt attempt.  I think it was Bobby Brown who shot it.

In any case.  It was a nail biter of a game.  If Canada couldn't pull away, then it was either team's game to win.  And when USA had the lead, they could not pull away either.  In OT Canada managed to squeak it out.  Wow. Exciting. This is why I love attending live games.
There were Americans in the crowd.  One fellow was from Texas.  But it was very respectable in the stands.  When USA scored, Canadian fans would comment on how good of a move or shot it was.  It wasn't a heckling type of crowd. These were real fans of the game. The ones that respect the players and the game.


Canada plays Brazil for the Gold Medal game on Saturday.
However Andrew Nicholson who scored 31 pts for Canada tonight against USA was injured in OT.  So I don't know if will be playing.

We could have stayed for the Puerto Rico vs Argentina match, because our tickets entitled us to that game as well. But it was 9pm and would have went on til 11pm and there was really nothing on the line for these two teams. It was just for 5th and 6th place.

Head down, knuckles dragging

We said good bye to a really good person, friend, dad, husband and neighbour a few months back.

Fred was the first of the cottage neighbours to welcome me with a beer.  Every cottage season for as long as I've been going to the Kranjec's cottage.

Fred was German and had that famous German work ethic and yet had a soft side that balanced his head down, knuckles dragging mentality.


There was a tree planting memorial about a month after his funeral and it was celebration of his life and his love for his family and the simple life at the cottage.

So I think this is a red maple tree.  But I'm no tree expert.
The kids painted rocks to put around the tree.  And Terry even spread a portion of Fred's ashes at the root of the tree.

Some said a few words.


And in between Kieran played his violin while friends and family gathered their thoughts and emotions.

And people appreciated the musical intermissions.


I don't always enjoy the long drive up to the cottage.  It's 250km one way.  But once I'm there, life seems to slow down.  I see the draw.  It's closeness of the neighbours.  A throwback to how life used to be before the internet, before the dependency on technology.





Who needs Twitter and video games when you can have evening gatherings around a fire, talking (about something you could have tweeted) and drinking beer and making s'mores.  Having fun in the water.







I'm sure where ever Fred is, he has a cold beer ready for someone.